Headlines of the day
Chess game erupts in gunfire in Greensburg (Pittsburg Tribune Review)
Our opponent employed the Nimzovitch Indian Defense. We responded with the Straight Out of Compton Gambit.
Live frog in lettuce stuns mom (NY Daily News)
Did he use a Taser or Nunchuks?
A study claims to show that lonely people tend to believe in God. It was designed and conducted by an over-educated little man who decided it was ok to play God. The moron admits he tried to make the subjects “feel lonely.” Well, if it was for science, what harm could it do?
Lonely people more likely to believe in God
Study: Those who feel isolated try to create social connections elsewhere
People who feel lonely are more likely to believe in the supernatural, whether that is God, angels or miracles, a new study finds.
Humans have evolved as social creatures, so loneliness cuts to the quick. Living in groups was critical to the survival and safety of our ancient ancestors, and "complete isolation or ostracism has been tantamount to a death sentence," said University of Chicago researcher Nicholas Epley, who led the study.
While group living isn't critical to survival in the modern world, feeling socially connected is. Feeling isolated and lonely is a very painful emotional state for people, Epley said, and can lead to ill health, both physically and mentally.
"Being socially isolated is just not good for you," he said.
Seeking connections
When people feel lonely, they may try to rekindle old friendships, seek out new ones or, as Epley's study suggests, they may create social connections by anthropomorphizing nearby gadgets, such as computers or cars, pets, or by believing in supernatural events or religious figures.
In their study, detailed in the February issue of the journal Psychological Science, Epley's team tried to induce feelings of loneliness in people to see how it affected how they thought of pets and their belief in religious figures.
In one experiment, college undergraduates were shown movie clips and told to try and empathize with the protagonist as best they could, in order to set them in one of three emotional states.
One group was shown a clip from "Cast Away," the movie in which the main character played by Tom Hanks is deserted on a remote island, in order to induce a feeling of isolation. The second group was shown a clip from the crime thriller "The Silence of the Lambs" to promote a sense of fear. A third, control group was shown a clip from the sports comedy feature film "Major League."
All three groups were then asked to describe a pet they owned or knew well and pick three traits from a list that best described them. The list included anthropomorphic traits that related to social connections (thoughtful, sympathetic) and simple behavioral descriptions (aggressive, energetic, fearful).
Believing in the supernatural
Participants from the loneliness group were more likely to describe the pet using the anthropomorphic descriptions than those in the fear or control groups.
All three groups were also asked to rate their belief in ghosts, angels, the devil, miracles, curses, and God, and again, those in the loneliness group reported stronger belief in these supernatural agents.
In another part of their study, Epley and his colleagues asked participants from the University of Chicago to fill out a personality questionnaire and were then told that the answers would be fed to a computer which would generate a future-life prediction for them. Half of the participants were read statements implying they would be lonely later in life, while the other half were told they would be socially connected for the rest of their lives.
"We tried to manipulate their loneliness, to make them feel lonely," Epley said.
The participants were then asked to rate their belief in the same supernatural agents in the other study, and those in the "lonely group" reported stronger belief than those in the "connected group." The results were also compared to ratings the participants gave before they got their life predictions, and those who reported a belief in God before and were made to feel lonely reported a stronger belief after the experiment.
"We found that inducing people to feel lonely made them more religious essentially," Epley told LiveScience, though he notes it won't cause any sudden conversions.
Owning pets and religious beliefs and practices are both known to increase a person's sense of well-being, but why exactly that is isn’t well known, Epley said.
Epley and his colleagues plan to probe the issue further to see if anthropomorphizing pets or believing in anthropomorphized supernatural agents is what is responsible for alleviating feelings of loneliness. If it is, it could provide alternate means for people to feel socially connected when connecting to humans isn't an option.
"There are health benefits that come from being connected to other people, and those same benefits seem to come from connection with pets and with religious agents, too," Epley said.
“Gee, thanks Dr. Mengele. You smart people are all right.”
“My memory skills? Well as a young chimp I spent a lot of time watching “The Banana Splits Show.” It had this theme song about “one banana, two banana,” you know. And that’s how it all started.”
I'm the chimpion! Ape trounces the best of the human world in memory competition
by FIONA MACRAE The Daily Mail
When scientists found out that chimps had better memories than students, there were unkind comments about the calibre of the human competition they faced.
But now an ape has gone one better, trouncing British memory champion Ben Pridmore.
Ayumu, a seven-year-old male brought up in captivity in Japan, did three times as well as Mr Pridmore at a computer game which involved remembering the position of numbers on a screen.
And that's no mean feat - the 30-year-old accountant from Derby is capable of memorising the order of a shuffled pack of cards in under 30 seconds. Both chimp and man watched a computer screen on which five numbers flashed up at various positions before being obscured by white squares.
They then had to touch the squares in order of the numbers they concealed, from lowest to highest. When the numbers were shown for just a fifth of a second - the blink of an eye - Ayumu got it right almost 90 per cent of the time.
His human opponent scored a rather less impressive 33 per cent, Channel Five programme Extraordinary Animals will reveal.
Mr Pridmore, who spends his evenings memorising 400-digit numbers, ruefully acknowledged that he had met his match.
Ben Pridmore can memorise the order of a pack of cards in 30 seconds - but was beaten by a chimp
"I'd rather not be seen on TV doing worse than a chimpanzee in a memory-test," he said. "I'll never live it down!"
The TV tests follow scientific experiments which pitted Ayumu, along with several other young chimps, against a group of university students.
Ayumu was the clear champion, doing twice as well as the humans.
It is thought that young chimps are blessed with photographic memories, allowing them to remember patterns and sequences with amazing accuracy.
Professor Tetsuro Matsuzawa, the Kyoto University researcher behind both sets of experiments, said: "People still believe that humans are superior to chimpanzees in any domain of intelligence.
"That is the prejudice of the people.
"Chimpanzees can be clever in a specific task in comparison to humans."
We bet they think their findings are shocking. These yokels really have to get out more.
Healthy food not available to poor
LOUISVILLE, Ky., Jan. 25 (UPI) -- Researchers in several U.S. cities are discovering that low-income residents aren't entirely at fault for purchasing mostly junk and prepared fast-foods.
Studies conducted by health professionals indicate that supermarkets in poorer neighborhoods are more likely to stock Twinkies than fresh fruit and vegetables, USA Today reported Friday.
Chicago-based researcher Mari Gallagher says poor eating habits can result from a lack of supermarkets with fresh produce, combined with low car ownership, an abundance of fast-food restaurants and high-priced convenience stores.
Gallagher's firm has been studying how neighborhood layout affects health in cities including Detroit, Chicago and Louisville, Ky.
"It's very difficult for people to change their behaviors if they don't have an environment in which to make that change" said Ana Diez-Roux, a researcher at the University of Michigan School of Public Health.
In Louisville, officials are working to bring about change with the establishment of a food security task force.
The group is looking at a number of strategies including offering small stores incentives to carry fresh produce and attracting farmers markets to lower-income neighborhoods.
"It's very difficult for people to change their behaviors if they don't have an environment in which to make that change" said Ana Diez-Roux, a researcher at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. As an entrepreneur I knew once told me, “Hey, you go with what you know.” And he didn’t even have a hyphen in his last name.
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